Sale-rooms
Book values
Peter Watson
It used to be said of the two main auction houses that Christie's were gentlemen trying to be auctioneers, while Sotheby's were auctioneers trying to be gentlemen. Well, for the moment they must all be perfectly content being auctioneers. So long as the financial world holds its nerve, we are set for the greatest season ever in the art market. This week in New York a fabulous collection of Kashmiri sapphires, Burmese rubies and Colombian emeralds changed hands. In one 24-hour period in November, no fewer than six paintings each worth $20 million or more will be sold off at the first auction to be televised live in its entirety. And, according to my sums, the end of November will crown a year when Picassos worth around $375 million will have been auctioned, making him almost as big a money-generating device as junk bonds. If only Pablo had worked on the margin . . . .
It is not the gentlemen of the sale-rooms I wish to dwell upon this week, however, but the scholars. Used in this context, that word may sound out of place: no more fitting than a kangaroo in a Canaletto. But scholars there are. You can tell this not just because their ties need ironing or their shoes need polishing, but because they have the letters PhD after their name and they spend months producing catalogues. Indeed, their catalogues are in several cases collectors' items in themselves. The scholars of whom I speak are not to be found in the oil-rich departments of Im- pressionist and modern painting, still less among the mineral beds of jewellery. No, they are in books.
Sotheby's started as a book auctioneer- ing house back in the 18th century, so it should be no surprise that its book depart- ment is large. But what is remarkable is that the department's personnel should have been so unaffected by the recent boom both in prices and in the attention paid to the sale-rooms. When you meet them, they talk about books, not che- quebooks. But they too are having an incredible season. Roy Davids, head of the book department at Sotheby's, says he
cannot remember a time when so much important material has been available. It will be a bonanza for bibliophiles.
Intellectually, the most tantalising, the most ambitious and possibly the most irritating collection coming up for sale is that conceived and formed by Haven O'More and funded by Michael Davis, which will be sold in New York on 9 and 10 November. What singles out this collection is the fact that O'More's aim was no less than to put together a selection of books and manuscripts which reflected the his- tory of ideas. Not everyone will see eye to eye with his choice but it is fascinating to see which books, and which ideas, he chose. We will all have our own candi- dates. Here are just a few of his: the first four folios of Shakespeare's works (esti- mate $700,000-1,000,000); a presentation copy of Copernicus's De Revolutionibus, which first put forward the theory of a sun-centred universe ($300,000-500,000); the first printing of Dante's Divine Com- edy, one of only 32 surviving copies and the first to appear at auction for 40 years ($300,000-500,000); a notebook of John Locke containing the earliest draft of his Essay Concerning Human Understanding ($250,000_400,000); Blake's Songs of In- nocence and Experience; Cervantes's Don Quixote and a manuscript fragment of Joyce's Finnegans Wake dating from 1928. The collection, of some 300 books and manuscripts, is expected to fetch around £10 million. The idea behind it was not, of course, too dissimilar from the original conception of the Ptolemies at Alexandria to construct a library there which would encompass all books, and therefore all ideas. Now it so happens that, by a nice irony, the Egyptian government and the University of Alexandria recently decided to revive this library and even to continue its spirit by trying to obtain not only those 700,000 books that were in the original library but all the significant books down the ages since. This is an extraordinarily ambitious project: the budget is $160 mil- lion, a site has already been set aside in Alexandria, and it is planned to open the library in 1995. The sale of the O'More and Davis collection must be the most exquisite piece of serendipity for the Egyptians. Seller and buyer are perfectly matched.
Two important collections have already been disposed of this season: those of H. Bradley-Martin (French literature, in Monaco) and Henry Myron Blackmer II (Ottoman empire books, in London); but still to come are the George Abrams collection (16 and 17 November) and the Trumbull papers (14 December). The Abrams collection comprises no fewer than 129 incunabula, including works by St Augustine, Cicero and Balms, and others with illustrations by Diirer and the Putti Master. Abrams himself is an American designer of typefaces and the catalogue of his collection is printed throughout in a typeface designed by him. The Trumbull Papers are the most im- portant collection of state papers of the 17th century ever to be offered at auction and comprise tens of thousands of rare letters, documents and literary works in British, European and American history: Henry VIII writing about Cranmer; Sir Francis Bacon; John Donne; Samuel Pepys; Dryden; Pope; the first Duke of Buckingham. This collection originally be- longed to the Trumbull family, diplomats and politicians in the 17th century. These are all proper collections, formed for cogent intellectual reasons rather than fad or fashion. As a result the catalogues now become important in their own right. After working for months on the Blackmer catalogue, for instance, Sotheby's were able to issue this in a limited edition: they are really the only people nowadays with the resources, and the opportunity, to do such a thing. The detail, quality of illustra- tions and organisation of their book cata- logues make them quite different from, and far superior to, catalogues in other fields. They are indispensable, both com- mercially and academically. The catalogue for the O'More and Davis collection has to Sultan Mahmoud II, from John Young's `A Series of Portraits of the Emperors of Turkey', in the Blackmer collection be one of the most interesting books published this year, whether you can afford the objects or not. It has always seemed extraordinary that the auction houses — now so profitable don't do more for the art world. Very little of the money they make is ploughed back to help museums, scholarship or training. At least the book departments can hold their heads higher in this respect. They are scholars and gentlemen.
Previous page
